Duty Bound (2 page)

"Master ven'Ducci feels my proper rating is
provisional second," he told his plate. "One ...understands... him
to believe that the--the strain of carrying a full second class is
...interfering... with one's studies."

"Rot," Daav said comprehensively. "Does he
think you're to finish at second class? We're both for master,
darling--unless you believe our mother will allow us anything
less?"

"No, of course not," Er Thom replied. Chi
yos'Phelium had never held shy of telling her sons exactly what she
expected them to accomplish on behalf of clan and kin, and neither
Er Thom nor Daav could conceive of failing her.

Daav had another sip of soup. "Do you fly
live?"

"Live?" Er Thom blinked. "I fly the dummy
board on the inner bridge."

"A second class pilot, practicing at a dummy
board?" Daav demanded. "What nonsense!"

"Oh, I suppose you practice live!" Er Thom
retorted, stung.

"Of course I do," his brother answered, with
a surprising lack of heat. "It's required."

"In fact," he said after swallowing the last
bit of soup, "I sat second board to the elder Scout on the trip
out. I don't doubt but I'll make the same trade with another pilot
for the ride back." He lifted his eyebrows, from which Er Thom
deduced that he had allowed his astonishment to show.

"Surely you can't think that the
ever-amiable Lieutenant tel'Iquin would lift extra mass where there
was no profit to herself?"

"As I have not had the pleasure of the
Lieutenant's acquaintance--" Er Thom began, and broke off as a
shadow fell across the table between them.

"So," said Captain Petrella yos'Galan, and
there was a hard shine in her blue eyes that Er Thom had learned
meant the entire opposite of his foster-mother's twinkle. "Nephew.
Well I had a beam from your mother my sister, desiring me to expect
you. When did you think you would come and register your presence
with the Captain?" She inclined her head, in mock courtesy. "Or
perhaps you believe the ship will feed you for free?"

"Aunt Petrella, my mother sends her love,"
Daav said with a calm Er Thom envied. "I regret that the desire to
see my brother caused me to delay making my bow to the Captain." He
smiled one of his sudden, transforming smiles. "And I surely never
expected the ship to guest me. I am able and willing to work my
passage."

"You relieve me," Er Thom's mother said
punctiliously. "And your passage is--?"

"I have ten Standard Days for the ship,"
Daav said. "At Venture I will barter for a lift back to Liad."

"And your mother agrees to this." She raised
a hand. "No, do not speak. I have her beam. My sister assures me
that she reposes faith in both your abilities and in your oath to
be early to the first class of the new term. The matter is outside
my authority. Within my authority, however..." She frowned down at
them both.

"Er Thom is not at liberty. He has his
studies and his assigned duties, which do not disappear because you
have chosen to appear."

Daav inclined his head. "Nor am I at
liberty, as we have both agreed that I shall work my passage."

Petrella's lips bent in her pale smile. "So
we have. At what work are you able, nephew?"

"I might be of some small service to the
cargo master," Daav said. "I might also be put to use in the
mechanics bay or at clerical." He picked up his mug and had a sip
of tea before slanting a quick, black glance at Er Thom and looking
back to the Captain. "I can help my brother with his piloting."

Er Thom felt a jolt. Daav tutor him at
piloting? Now, there was turnabout! He felt a glare building, then
remembered that Master ven'Ducci held his license hostage and
subsided, eyes stinging.

Happily, neither his brother nor his mother
seemed to have noticed his near display.

"Oh?" Petrella said, with the ironic
courtesy that characterized so much of her discourse with her son.
"Last I had heard, you held a second class provisional."

"I now hold a first class provisional," Daav
said, with a remarkable lack of preening. "Of course, one requires
flight time."

"Which one gains," Er Thom murmured,
suddenly enlightened, "by sitting second board to Scout pilots in
trade for transport."

Petrella frowned down at him. "Master
ven'Ducci has spoken to me," she began.

"Master ven'Ducci," Daav interrupted,
against best health, "is an idiot. Come, aunt! Who ties a second
class to a dummy board?"

Both of her eyebrows rose and Er Thom held
his breath, waiting for one of her blistering scolds to fall upon
Daav's heedless head.

"So, we agree again," Petrella murmured, and
there was something less of irony and somewhat more of courtesy in
her voice. "You will be pleased to learn then, both of you, that
Master ven'Ducci has been Instructed to use the Captain's Shuttle
for future piloting lessons, beginning tomorrow. I will see to it
that your schedules coincide for that lesson, and then--we shall
see." She fixed Daav in her eye.

"If I hear aught of mayhem from the master
pilot, you will find yourself early indeed for first class, young
Daav. Do I make myself sufficiently plain?"

Respectfully, he inclined his head, but Er
Thom saw his eyes dancing in mischief. "Aunt, you do."

"It is well." She sighed. "Apply to the
first mate for quarters and ship-garb--your brother will show you
the way. Your work schedule will be on your screen tomorrow at
first hour; pray do not be tardy." Her gaze shifted. "My
son..."

Er Thom raised his face to hers.

"Mother?"

Her lips bent once more in her slight smile,
and she reached into her belt, withdrawing a flat rectangle. Er
Thom's hand leapt out, fingers questing, and his mother's smile,
strangely, deepened.

"Not a pilot," she murmured, perhaps to
herself. "What nonsense." She put the license into his hand and
inclined her head.

"Be worthy of it, child of Korval."

* * *

HE SAT SECOND board to Daav, Master
ven'Ducci a poised, silent presence in the jump-seat at their
backs.

"Systems check," Daav murmured, hands moving
with precision across his board. Er Thom followed his brother's
lead, hands steady and careful, waking that portion of the piloting
board which was the responsibility of the co-pilot. Screens lit,
toggles glowed, maincomp beeped. The comm unit likewise beeped as
information began to flow in from Dutiful Passage. Er Thom fielded
the data, translated it, replied and received yet more data.

"The ship wishes us gone, brother," he said,
scarcely noting that he spoke. "We are cleared to leave
immediately, if that is the pilot's pleasure."

"Nothing more," Daav answered, and threw him
a grin. "We have a course, I see, locked to navcomp."

Er Thom looked--a two hour run?--then his
brother's voice drew him back to his immediate duty.

"Pray request Dutiful Passage to open the
bay door."

Er Thom flipped the toggle that opened the
voice line. "Captain's Shuttle ready for departure. Request bay
door open."

"Bay door open," affirmed the cool voice of
the pilot on duty at the starship's main board. "Good lift,
pilots."

Screen One showed the bay door iris; Daav
laughed, slapped the toggle, and the shuttle rolled free.

* * *

"MUCH IMPROVED," Master ven'Ducci said,
nearly three hours later, as they stood once again in the bay
corridor. He bowed, very slightly. "I am encouraged, Pilot
yos'Galan."

Er Thom returned the bow. The lift had been
a fine and bewildering thing. The simulations he had been flying
were meticulously crafted, but live flight--live flight was
different He was still a-tingle with energy, his thoughts as sharp
as fabled Clutch crystal, standing tall in an exhilaration that
persisted despite the full knowledge of having several times
bungled his board.

"You will both attend me here tomorrow at
the same hour," the master pilot said, and with another slight bow
strode away down the hall. Er Thom stared after him, frowning.

"Trouble, darling?" Daav was fair glittering
himself, black eyes wide in his narrow face.

Er Thom drew a deliberate breath, trying to
quiet the exuberant pounding of his heart. "Say, rather,
puzzlement. I botched things rather badly at the phase-change and
yet he makes no mention of it. Had I made an error one-twelfth as
grievous on the practice board, he would not have held shy of
apprizing me, never fear it! Yet, today, with three ham-witted
errors to my tally, he is 'much encouraged'!"

"Perhaps he means to see if you repeat the
errors tomorrow?"

"Repeat them tomorrow?" Er Thom stared. "I
should never had made them today! I've been working phase equations
in my head since Master Robir showed us the forms, when we were
eight."

"Learning curve," Daav said, linking his arm
in Er Thom's and beginning to stroll down the hall in the master
pilot's wake. "I tremble to tell you how badly I've bungled my math
at piloting. We were training on sling landings, you see, and I
transposed my vectors."

Er Thom laughed. "Tell me you came in upside
down!"

"But of course I came in upside down," Daav
said amiably. "And hung upside down in the sling, like seven sorts
of fool, while Master dea'Cort used my situation to lesson the rest
of the class on the need to thoroughly check one's equations." He
sighed and looked briefly mournful, then dropped Er Thom's arm with
a grin.

"Enough telling tales out of piloting
class!" he said gaily. "It will no doubt astonish you to learn that
I am ravenous. If we hurry, I can wheedle an apple out of the cook
before reporting to the cargo master for duty. Catch me."

He was gone, running full speed down the
hall.

Er Thom bit back a newly acquired curse and
hurtled after.

* * *

IT WAS WELL into Fourth Shift and both of
them should have been long abed. Instead, they were in the control
room at the heart of the Passage. Er Thom was sitting first board.
There was no second. Daav was leaving for school on the morrow. He
sat, hands folded on his lap, in what would have been the jump-seat
in a smaller ship--a passenger on this, their last flight
together.

Er Thom's hands moved across the board with
swift surety, no wasted motion, no false moves. His face was intent
and his shoulders just a bit rigid, but that was expectable, the
sim he was flying being somewhat in advance of his skill level.

The screen flashed a familiar
pattern--Daav's own particular nemesis, as it happened--and he
leaned forward, watching as Er Thom adroitly--one might say,
casually--fed in the proper course for an avoid, and the
simultaneous adjustment to ship's pressure. Quietly, Daav sighed,
leaned back in his chair--and jerked forward the next moment as the
screen flared and Er Thom's elegant choreography degenerated into a
near random slap at the Jump button, which was entirely wrong and
too late besides.

Using the exercise he had been taught by the
Scouts, Daav released the tension in his muscles, then put his hand
on his brother's shoulder.

"A good run, darling. Don't repine."

Er Thom looked up, blue eyes flashing a
frustration of his own ineptitude that Daav understood all too
well.

"It can't quite be a good run, can it," he
snapped, "when the ship is destroyed around one?"

"Well--no," Daav admitted. "On the other
face, you flew further than I have yet to fly."

"Truly?" Er Thom looked so startled that
Daav laughed.

"Yes, truly, you lout! Remember me, the
ten-thumbed junior brother?"

"All too well, thank you!" Er Thom replied
with a gratifying flash of brotherly scorn. He sobered almost
immediately. "You have changed, you know. Even in so short a time.
I--do you find it at all ...odd or, or ...lonely, to, to--" He
floundered.

"Do I find it disquieting to be away from
all that was usual in my life, and made to stand singleton before
the world, when I have no memory but of being half of the whole we
two made between us?" Daav said in a serious and quite adult voice.
Er Thom took a breath and met bleak black eyes straightly.

"Yes," said Daav, "I do."

"So do I," Er Thom murmured, relieved, in an
odd way, that at least this much had not changed--that he found his
brother and himself at one on this matter of importance to them
both. "One's ...mother... assures one that these feelings will
pass. Do you think -- "

The door to the control room opened and
Petrella yos'Galan strode within.

"Of course I would find you both here," she
snapped, but Er Thom thought her face was--not
entirely--displeased.

"Good shift, Aunt Petrella," Daav said
politely. "Er Thom has just been having a run at the general-flight
masters sim."

Petrella's eyebrows rose. "Oh, indeed? And
how did he fare, I wonder?"

"Poorly enough." Er Thom spun his chair to
face her. "My ship was destroyed two-point-eight minutes into the
flight."

Astonishingly, his mother grinned. "No, do
you say so? Well I recall that dicey bit of action! Forty-four
times, I lost my ship exactly there. The forty-fifth--well, say I
survived another minute."

"And I," Daav said mournfully, "am doomed to
forever lose my wings at two-point-three."

"There?" Er Thom turned to stare at him.
"But that was a mere nothing!"

"So you say!"

"No, but, Daav, all one need do --"

His brother raised a hand. "Yes, yes, I saw
you. Perhaps my wretched fingers will have learned their lesson,
now I've seen it can be done." He looked up to Petrella, a wry grin
on his face. "Fifty-two times."

She smiled back. "I will hear that you've
mastered the whole tape soon enough."

Daav inclined his head. "Your certainty
gives me courage. Aunt Petrella."